No Rehab for Gotham White
by TheMadKatter13
Summary: [Kinktober 2017 series 19: Olfactophilia (Scent)] Biology dictated that it was only a matter of time before Bruce gave in. Alpha Joker / Omega Bruce
1. Chapter 1

**SUMMARY: Biology dictated that it was only a matter of time before Bruce gave in.**

 **AO3 TAGS: Alternate Universe, Omega Verse, Alpha/Omega, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Joker, Omega Bruce, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Violence, Scenting, Enemies to Lovers, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Knifeplay, Anal, Anal Sex, Top Joker, Bottom Bruce, Marking, Biting, Bonding, Forced Bonding, Knotting, Come Marking, Come Swallowing, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Joker, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Kinktober, Kinktober 2017**

 **AN: So, I had the idea for this fic almost exactly a year ago according to my blog post (didn't know it had been that long), wherein I basically had a sudden and inexplicable desire to write alpha the Joker / omega Batman and I have NO idea why, especially since I tried out BatJokes for a short time about 7? years ago during my dA/FFN days, and haven't thought about it since. I ended up writing the first 2-3k last November, and then dropped it for something else, and forgot about it until the day I picked it up again a week? ago and I decided 'why not' cuz prompt fill months are the best for trying new ships. So… here. we. go.**

 **(Title plays on one of the slang terms for heroin, 'china white').**

 **Cross-posted from AO3 same-day.**

* * *

Day 19: Prostitution/Sex Work | **Olfactophilia (Scent)** | Nipple Play

Long before Ra's al Ghul taught him how to be a weapon, Martha and Thomas Wayne taught Bruce that he was born a weapon: _"Your superiors, peers, and subordinates will all treat you as if you are less than them, because you are an omega, Bruce. But it is because you are an omega that you have all the power over them."_

It was advice that Bruce took to heart, and he armed himself with it before entering every office and every meeting. He learned manipulation through silver-tongued speech, subtle flattery, and even subtler application of pheromones before he even presented. He continued wearing blockers for his own scent paired with carefully selected pheromones after puberty,and when he became Batman, it was just another weapon he kept in his arsenal. Bottled heat scent, never his own though, of course, came in particularly handy during his vigilantism considering most criminals tended to be alphas. Alphas, for all that they were placed on pedestals by the world, were weak to omegas and easily manipulated, no matter how much they believed themselves in control.

Bruce was a weapon, and so was his second gender, and he wielded it as such. The only time it became a weakness was when he was battling the Joker. Because of all the alphas he'd encountered thus far in the world, the Joker was the first he'd met that bore the scent marking him as a true mate, an alpha with whom Bruce was most compatible with, an alpha with whom would help him create the most successful offspring. Because for as successful as he was financially, Bruce had never had much personal luck. Of _course_ the Joker would end up being a true mate.

However, he wasn't sure if the Joker would be able to scent what Bruce was to him. Not that he was willing to test it, but the Joker was never affected by the omega pheromones or heatscent that Bruce applied prior to their fights. Other alphas were effectively stunned by heatscent, eyes glazed, movements uncoordinated, speech slurred but the Joker… the Joker was just as sharp-minded and sharp-tongued as he was when Bruce encountered him smelling like a beta or an alpha. He never pulled his punches, never abstained from any form of violence. It seemed to all be the same to him, and Bruce could only wonder if the accident that had discoloured him had obliterated his sense of smell, diminished it to something closer to a beta's. Still, as much as Bruce _wondered_ , he didn't dare test. It was bad enough that he could get aroused by the psychopath's scent standing in the midst of a murder scene, suppressants or not.

The Joker was actually the sole reason Bruce started taking suppressants in the first place - of all the dangerous things Bruce had ever done, attempting to go against the Joker when Bruce's heat was coming was by far the most dangerous - Bruce was always careful to ensure he only had a heat when the Joker was in jail. Which was why this particular breakout was so… _disastrous_. There had been no indications the Joker was preparing to escape Arkham, and in hindsight, that should have been a clue in itself because the Joker was _always_ preparing to escape Arkham.

Now here they were, the Joker and his clown-masked crew, terrorizing the occupants of a jewellery shop, and here Batman was, the start of his heat smoldering under his skin, the hastily-swallowed suppressants in his blood burning up before they could even really get the chance to work; at this rate, they might have slowed the onset… if only he couldn't smell his true mate nearby. Bruce's own scent was starting to permeate the smothering restriction of his suit and he could already see the effect of his pheromones on victims and villains alike. Except for the Joker, grinning down at them from the second floor balcony.

"Oh Batsy, you know those silly things never work on me!" he cackled as his minions mobbed Bruce, who could only hope that the Joker's immunity to his pheromones meant that he wouldn't realize they were Bruce's.

Bruce wasn't so lucky. He was never so lucky.

the Joker's scent wasn't muted at the best of times, since he seemed disinclined to take suppressants or scent blockers other than when Arkham forced him, and his personality made his pheromones vibrant to everyone, but Bruce's susceptibility made them especially strong and affecting. It had never mattered what fabric Bruce covered his nose with or what pheromones he smeared under his nose, or how strong there were, there was never a time he wasn't painfully aware of the Joker's proximity. However, now, his oncoming heat amplified the scent hundred-fold, muddled his mind and body like the way his weaponized pheromones affected the alphas he usually fought, and made the dime-a-dozen criminals feel stronger than they actually were. By the time they were unconscious on the floor, Bruce was panting from exhaustion and the rise of his heat, and the Joker had disappeared from his mezzanine.

"Everyone, get out!" Bruce barked at the hostages, waving his arm at the front doors which were now cleared of obstacles and wide open. No one moved. " _Now_!" A few people squeaked in surprise at his volume and then, almost as one, they ran for the door, like a stampeding herd. They started screaming for the cops before they'd even vacated the premises, even though the store's blaring alarm meant that there'd be sirens in the distance soon anyway.

"Aw, honey, you let all the party favours escape!" The voice floated through the shop, almost ghostly in the way it seemed to echo bodilessly.

Bruce whipped around to search for the source and his head swam, telling him that he needed to finish this and _quick_. He was already wet, slick smearing between his buttcheeks with every step, a truly disgusting sensation. Soon, it would get infinitely worse when it started sliding down his legs in thick, unignorable trails. He _had_ to take care of the Joker before then.

"Shy?" Bruce called out. "What a poor host."

the Joker's giggle sounded even more eerie when disembodied, and Bruce stalked forward, ignoring the weakness in his knees, the spreading slick, the cramps, the desire to lay down and not get up for a week. the Joker had been in the store for long enough that his scent had made the air a heavy blanket, weighing Bruce down, accelerating his heat, making him vulnerable.

"What can I say? I like to arrive fashionably-" _BANG!_ "-late!" Confetti and shrapnel rained down on Bruce from the ceiling and he ducked under his cape until the debris stopped. When it did, he couldn't stand up again. His body wanted him to stay on his knees, wanted him to prostrate himself and let the alpha to which he was so biologically suited procreate. It almost made him sick.

"What's the problem, Batsy? Can't get it up?"

The voice came from directly behind him, and Bruce managed to stand as he spun and fell into a fighting stance. the Joker was grinning - he was always grinning - and was already throwing a fist before Bruce had even found his balance. He was back on the ground again in a split second, pain blooming across his cheek. He hadn't even gotten his breath back before the Joker was throwing himself onto Bruce, pinning him to the ground.

Normally, the Joker was strong, unreasonably so, considering how much of a beanpole he was, but with Bruce's heat on the Joker's side, he seemed indomitable. It was a struggle to try to push him off. Too much of a struggle. So much of one that… he couldn't actually do it.

"Finally succumbing to my wiles, Batsy? How-" the Joker stopped short, and Bruce got a sick feeling in his stomach.

 _'Don't notice it don't notice don'tnoticeit.'_ He made an effort to push the Joker off him one more time, but the alpha caught his wrists and pinned them to the floor next to his head. He loathed how good it felt.

"Hush, Bats. the Joker's thinking." And then he dipped his head down and scented along the line of Bruce's jaw.

"Oooh, what's this?" the Joker hummed, and then licked him. The contact sent shudders through Bruce's spine. "You're not using someone else's pheromones today, Batsy. You're using your own." He sounded awed in the most terrifying kind of way. The way that Bruce has never wanted to hear from his arch nemesis. "My, my, don't you smell _delightful_. Your heat's coming in nicely. Where's your alpha, Bat-boy?"

 _'Don't say it don't say it don't you dare-'_ "I don't have one." _'You are the worst person ever, Bruce.'_

"Is that right, honeycakes?"

 _'It's a miracle you've survived this long.'_

"Ya want one?"

"Get off." _'Bruce, no.'_

"Mmm, glady."

"Get off of me." _'Bruce, yes.'_

"Aw, don't be that way, babe," the Joker purred - _purred_ \- as the pheromones in the room increased, flooding the space, offering, inviting.

Nevermind, Bruce _was_ going to throw up.

"I believe I can provide a service. One that you're going to need soon." He leaned in again, inhaling deeply at the underside of Bruce's jaw, the closest he could get with the cowl in the way. Every instinct in his traitorous body demanded that Bruce tilt his head back, offer his throat, but he refused to give in, even though he couldn't seem to force his head down in order to headbutt the Joker away from his neck. "Mmm, _very_ soon."

Bruce tugged weakly at the hold on his wrists, and he was surprised when the Joker let one of them go. The smug, yellow grin made it clear though that he thought Bruce had succumbed, which was what let Bruce get him with an elbow across the jaw. the Joker tumbled off him and Bruce rolled away from the alpha and onto his hands and knees, but just like before, he was stuck there, his body weak, helpless.

He forgot how much of a mistake it was to take his eyes off the Joker.

A body blanketed his from behind, draping over him, providing a weight he hated to need. His back bowed under it, ass sticking out, and the weight increased steadily, pushing him down until he was laying on the floor and the Joker was an unyielding weight all along the length of him. He may have been thinner than Bruce, but he was just as tall, and he easily hooked his chin over Bruce's shoulder. There was a roaming pressure moving up and down his sides like the Joker was stroking along his ribs, but thankfully, the suit prevented Bruce from experiencing the more intimate version of the unwanted contact. Unfortunately, nothing prevented the Joker's breath from wafting warmth along his jawbone or intoxicating scent under his nose. A scent that was steadily growing stronger. More enticing. _Irresistable._

"C'mon, Batsy. Let me take care of you." the Joker's voice dropped to a growl, a strong alpha commanding one weaker than him to obey " _You know I can take care of you."_

It took three tries to get his tongue to work, his mouth was so dry. "I don't want you to take care of me," he finally replied, loathing the breathy quality to his voice.

To his immense and frustratingly-displeased surprise, the weight disappeared from his back immediately and he rolled over onto his back. Bad idea, just like every other thing he'd done so far this evening the Joker was standing over him, and the sight was altogether too appealing. For the first time in his life, Bruce was starting to hate his secondgender.

"Oh, how flush you look. So pretty," the alpha cooed mockingly, somehow conveying both a sincerity and a lack of at the same time. "All that red looks lovely with all that black." the Joker stepped forward, until he was straddling Bruce's waist, but he didn't crouch down, for which Bruce was thankful. Not that the closure in distance did anything for his arousal. He could feel how wet he was, how much wetter he was becoming. He had to get to his feet before he started soaking through his suit and his cape to the floor.

"Aren't you going to get up, Batsy?" the Joker giggled. "I bet it's hard with that suit in the way. So… very… _haaa... difficult._ "

Sitting up was one of the hardest things Bruce had ever tried to do, every muscle protesting such an unnatural movement when all he wanted to do was bow down. Hands intruded in his vision, fingers tangling in the front of his cape, and hauled him to his feet. Vertigo struck him hard, making him wobble dangerously, and the only thing that kept him upright was a thinner body tucking itself against his, giving him shoulders to lean on.

"Mmm, not very steady, are you Bat-boy?" Pressure moved around his sides and around to his back. Arms, hugging him, holding him in place. His skin crawled under his suit at the contact.

"Shut. Up," Bruce ground out. He tried to take a step backwards but his legs crumpled under him, untrustworthy in the face of his weight.

The Joker jerked him back into place, and Bruce found his face planted in a bleach-white neck, nose pressed to one of the strongest scenting points on the body. Surprised, he inhaled to speak, and almost choked on the strange combination of scents. As compatible as they were, as attractive as the Joker's pheromones were to Bruce, his skin carried a chemical taint to it that made Bruce's throat and nose itch in displeasure. Not just displeasure - that was too light of a word. The formaldehyde-like scent repulsed Bruce, and the deeper Bruce dug his nose into the Joker's pulse, the stronger it became, like it was in his blood. Bruce tried to turn his head to get away from it, to get back to the point where all he could smell was the Joker's too-compatible pheromones rather than his tainted skin, but the alpha's clothes smelled only of formaldehyde with none of the Joker's pheromones to temper the stink. Groaning, he turned his face back to the Joker's neck and tried to find the threads of scent he could handle.

As Bruce tried to get himself back under control, tried to gather the energy he would need to get away, he couldn't help but wonder if knowing what the Joker's skin smelled like was better or worse than not knowing. Because when he didn't know, the only imagination he'd leant to the subject had been based on the alpha's scent and the automatic presumption that his skin would smell the same. Now Bruce knew better; now he knew that he couldn't stand the scent of the alpha's skin up close and yet couldn't stop craving it at the same time. He couldn't decide if ignorance had been bliss or… no none of it was bliss. There was no bliss to be had in being a true mate to the Joker.

"Looks like you can't even stand, jello of my heart." The leer in the alpha's voice made Bruce want to stand under a waterfall for three years just to get clean. "However will you get home now? Perhaps by a personalized clown car service?"

"I'm not taking you home," Bruce managed to say, but it was a battle to get the words out. He had more success with getting his hands between them and shoving the Joker away, sending them stumbling apart. Unfortunately, distance meant the harshness of the Joker's skin faded and left his nose filled with nothing but the alpha's pheromones instead.

The Joker stared at him with dark eyes and a darker grin, and his pheromones blossomed in the room, commanding Bruce to submit. Bruce grunted when he fell to his knees but he managed to keep his chin tilted up, glaring warningly at his true mate. His mind was working overtime, trying to find a safe, undetectable way home, but his mental faculties were hazy in the face of his heat setting in. And it was terrifyingly close to peaking. In the distance, Bruce could make out the sound of sirens, the imminent approach of the police who were, possibly, even more dangerous to Batman in his current state than the Joker was.

"Uh-oh!" the Joker sing-songed, skipping forward. "Looks like the party poopers are about to crash our intimate little shindig." Before Bruce could stop or divert him, the alpha had ducked low and somehow managed to haul Bruce up over his shoulders into an uncomfortable fireman's carry without halting his quick steps towards the staircase at the back of the store. Bruce's body was traitorously aroused by the display of strength, slick flowing more copiously even as his stomach flipped from the sudden shift in space and even as Bruce struggled to escape from it. the Joker pinched the inside of his thigh in reprimand as he began to climb the stairs . "I have to hurry to get my little pet all secreted away before his rightful owners find out he's missing."

"My only owner is myself," Bruce protested weakly, clawing at the Joker's back as if he could pull himself off the alpha's shoulders. "I'm not yours and I never will be."

"Au contraire, mi amor," the Joker sang back. "You've always been mine. I would love to tell you all about it but I think we need to muzzle you for a quick escape. Later, toots!"

The last thing Bruce saw before the blackness took over was the pillar standing in the way of his head.

* * *

Bruce half-expected to wake up de-masked, de-suited, mounted, and mated. Alphas were animals under their thin veneer of control and power, and anyone except a family member would take a vulnerable omega the second they had a chance to get away with it. He wanted to think the best of humanity, but he'd seen too much of the dark sides of it to hope too hard. He should have known that meant that the Joker would do the opposite.

So when he did wake up, Bruce was so overheated from being stuck in his costume when his heat started that it seemed like his sweat would seep through the fabric before his slick did. He was also face-down on what felt like a mattress, one saturated with the scent of the Joker's pheromones and skin, making it equally appealing and repellent. It was a struggle and a half just to roll onto his back to put some distance between the contradicting smells and his sensitive nose, but when he got there, he found he was indeed on a mattress, set onto the floor of what appeared to be a loft room of a warehouse amidst abandoned tools, cans, trash. The room was also thick with the Joker's scent, thankfully more pheromones than skin, but the alpha himself was nowhere in sight.

For all that he appeared to be alone, there was no way to tell if there were cameras and microphones hidden anywhere in the room, at least not in the state Bruce was in. And even though rape was not one of the Joker's M.O.s, Bruce had no plans on tempting his true mate. So Bruce stayed clothed and he kept his hands tangled in his cape to keep them from staying into his pants. It meant that untold hours passed where he squirmed and sweated and leaked and writhed, the agony of need and of cramps as his heat wreaked havoc on his body. It also meant that he experienced bouts of unconsciousness when his body could no longer handle the lack of stimulation. Whenever that happened, he found the Joker's scent renewed, especially alongside the mattress Bruce couldn't get up from, and food and water lined up within easy reach.

Bruce knew he needed to hydrate, that he needed to eat, but he couldn't trust that the supplies he was seemingly being provided weren't poisoned in some way. He was already weak from heat and he stood no chances fighting off… anything. There was also a knotting dildo at the end of the line of food, one that somehow smelled like the Joker without smelling like his skin, but right after Bruce's hazy mind realized what it was, he promptly pretended it didn't exist. He would survive this heat without water or food, and he would survive it without a cock, real or artificial. And then he would make his escape.

His resolve to not eat lasted all of the first day, but by the time the moon was high enough to send light in through the small window, Bruce's throat was so dry it felt like he was choking on every breath. When he didn't die, he renewed his resolve to ignore the dildo he was pretending didn't exist. That lasted until when day two was melting into day three, and he hated himself just a little more even as he reached for the toy. To his surprise, it crumpled like paper in his hand and gave way to something underneath.

It was paper. The toy was nothing more than an elaborate prank. And beneath it, the punch line: a cellphone with a note:

 _Dial 2 for personalized room service._

Bruce almost threw the phone across the room, but his insides rebelled, muscles contracting painfully. They had been getting worse the longer he'd ignored his body's urges, and they had already started at levels that pushed Bruce's threshold for pain. It seemed that being filled with nothing for hours on end was even worse than being filled with something fake.

He didn't let himself think as he held down the 2 on the numberpad, and he didn't let himself think as he heard the phone ring, and he especially didn't let himself think when the phone clicked into an automated answering machine and his stomach sank and he hurled the phone across the room. He didn't let himself think at all as he forced his body into a trembling stillness and buried his face in the pillow he couldn't stand, couldn't get enough of. He didn't let himself think so firmly that he didn't notice anyone else had entered the room until someone was straddling the backs of his thighs and leaning down over his back.

"Told ya ya'd give in eventually, Bats," the Joker purred in Bruce's ear, nuzzling the sensitive bit of skin just behind.

"I didn't give in," Bruce lied, even as the Joker's scent began to bloom in the air around him, filling the room with fresh new pheromones, powerful fumes that instantly began to ease the cramps making him weak. The pheromones just made him a different kind of weak, like he was getting high off of them. It was ruined a second later when the Joker leaned in closer to brush their lips together and Bruce got a taste of chemicals and he recoiled.

"You're giving in right now, toots," the Joker retorted, voice smug as he leaned back. He was already hard, pressing against Bruce's ass, a temptation he didn't want to accept as much as he needed it.

"No," Bruce gasped, pressing his forehead hard into the soft give of the mattress, trying to bring himself under control, even as he knew how hopeless it was. This late in his heat, in the presence of a true mate, he didn't stand a chance.

"You're not giving in?" the Joker asked, voice dramatically mocking. "I guess I'll come back later then, when you take down your Do Not Disturb sign. Not that it means much when you're already disturbed, eh Batsy?" the Joker said as he shifted off the back of Bruce's thighs. And then he stood up and away, and Bruce caved. He twisted up onto an elbow as he reached behind him with his other arm to snag the Joker's pant leg, tugging him forward and back down. the Joker fell back over him, sandwiching Bruce between his body and the bed.

"And I'm back," the Joker laughed, that unnerving high-pitched giggle as he scented along the exposed line of Bruce's jaw. "Miss me?"

"No," Bruce growled through gritted teeth. His throat felt terrifyingly vulnerable with an alpha's teeth so close, even though the Joker wouldn't be able to reach it without a great deal of effort combined with a great lack of on Bruce's part. Still, he turned his head as he said "Did you plan to start before my heat was over?"

"Bit overdressed, aren'tya, Batsy?" the Joker asked, ignoring Bruce's question and his attempt to get away and simply moved to the other side of Bruce's neck to scent along the other line of his jaw. It was hard to tell with the Joker, but Bruce thought that that might have been a question and a statement all in one.

"Not around you, I'm not," he replied, ducking his head down and hunching his shoulders up to dislodge the alpha from his neck. the Joker negated his attempt by wedging a hand between Bruce and the bed to grip his chin with terrifying strength, jerking his head around so the Joker could lean up over his shoulder and steal another kiss.

It was easier to take than the last one, though that could have something to do with the tongue that shoved into his mouth. There was still that chemical taint to the alpha's lips, but whatever had affected him had only affected his skin. Tasting his tongue on Bruce's was like tasting his pheromones, and Bruce concentrated on the scent of his mouth until he was rutting against the bed in his need. He had thought the emptiness in his hole and the hardness of his cock had been excruciating the last two days, but it seemed negligible to the sensation of having his true mate there and not inside him. Not in a way that mattered anyway.

The fingers on his chin shifted, and then two of them were pushing between their mouths and into Bruce's. _Chemical_ burst across Bruce's tongue and he jerked back, gagging, and tried to wipe the taste from his tongue by scraping at it with his glove. the Joker glared at him, the first real expression of malice Bruce had ever seen from the alpha, but he didn't have time to examine it before a hand between his shoulder blades shoved him flat to the bed.

"You're not my first true mate, Batsy," the Joker sneered out of sight, and Bruce jerked at the realization that the Joker was actually able to scent their compatibility. Then darkness fell over Bruce's vision and he had to fight the drape of his cape with heavy arms to clear the fabric from where the Joker had flung it over his vision. "I had a pretty little wife and we loved each other more than anything. And then I come home looking like this and suddenly she can't stand the _scent_ of me!" Something sharp slashed from one ass cheek to the opposite thigh, cutting open the seat of his suit with a soft sound that got lost in the Joker's hiss. When it crossed Bruce the other way, forming a stinging, on his backside, Bruce had to tighten his body to keep from jumping - the Joker had something sharp on-hand and Bruce didn't want to attract the madman's attention or provoke him into a stabbing.

The feel of air across his overheated skin was unnerving, especially over the lines of slick trailing down the back of his thighs and their source. There was a prodding at his hole that made him tense, and then the Joker shoved in without warning or preparation. It didn't… _hurt_. Not exactly. His body welcomed the alpha's cock more quickly than Bruce was truly comfortable with, but the stretch was a great surprise. It wasn't that he'd never been penetrated before, he'd spent heats with trusted alphas in the past and had invited alphas, betas, and omegas into his bed between heats, had topped and bottomed for all three second genders, but it had been some time, it had never been with a true mate, and it had never been with the Joker.

"Ooh, baby, you're so tense!" the Joker cooed in a disturbing, high falsetto. Fingers with a steely strength clamped over Bruce's shoulders, digging in bruisingly, like the Joker was trying to pierce right through his skin to his muscles. "You really should convince the boss to let you have a day off." His eerie voice and words were contradicted by the way his hips snapped sharply forward, burying the full length of him in Bruce. Bruce could only shudder and then relax at the relief of finally being full after two days of complete emptiness, without even a toy or his fingers to stave off the pain.

"As long as you're out, I'll never have a day off," he said, as if the Joker wasn't settling into a steady, if energetic, rhythm, fingers gripping tighter every time he pulled Bruce back into his thrusts.

"Don't think I didn't notice that, Batsy," the Joker said, the strength in his voice unaffected by how rapidly he was fucking into Bruce. "How you always disappear for a few days when I go on vacation. I always wondered why you never fought me during your heat like you've fought others. Never dreamed you were avoiding me because you're mine."

The pain-relieving-pleasure was starting to build, was starting to come into its own as the Joker forced Bruce's willing body to accept his length and the minor swell of his growing knot. Thankfully, Bruce kept himself on a strict regime of birth control pills, both to regulate his heat and to prevent accidental pregnancy when he never knew when he might be called to some event or who he might be taking home with him that night. Otherwise, statistics indicated that spending even one heat, even unbonded, with a true mate, would guarantee a successful pregnancy.

"I'm not yours," Bruce denied, perhaps a bit too late, judging by the Joker's cackle. But he was trying too hard to keep the hypothetical what-ifs of pregnancy out of his heat-hazed mind, nevertheless a pregnancy begot of his arch nemesis.

"You could be," the Joker replied with as if he hadn't laughed at Bruce a moment ago, as if he wasn't already set on Batman being his. Bruce wondered if he would escape this without a mating bite, even as his over-analytical brain began to spin contingencies for what he was sure was now the inevitable. If not this time, then the next. And he knew there would be a next too. "You know Arkham can't keep me for long, especially now that I know I have a omega waiting for me to sate his need every few months on the outside. You don't have to avoid me on your heats."

Bruce knew he was making a mistake as soon as he opened his mouth, but everything about tonight had been a mistake. Starting from the moment he decided to leave to fight a true mate during the onset of his heat. Or maybe his mistakes began when he didn't check in on the Joker when he was so quiet. Or maybe it was before that, when he didn't- It didn't really matter. Bruce had made too many mistakes in his life and he knew better than to dwell on the past. All he could do was live in the present and make efforts to prevent identical mistakes in the future. And in the present, he was making a life-altering mistake.

"I don't have to, you're right," he agreed. He tried to stop himself from continuing, but the pain and the heat and the pleasure had loosened his tongue, just as it had made him weak. "I want to. I still want to. I want to even more now than I did before, now that I know your scent from up close." Bruce closed his eyes even as he spoke. Maybe a part of him did want what he'd just provoked, but whether it was because he actually wanted it or because he lived for self-flagellation, he couldn't be sure.

The Joker didn't still at Bruce's words. In fact, even as he began to growl, a rumbling thing that travelled through his body and into Bruce's, he began to fuck Bruce harder and his knot started increasing in size between each thrust and the one after it. One of the vice-like hands biting into his shoulder finally released him, sending blood rushing black into the skin and making the area tingle, and then there was a sharp, cold line across the back of his head a moment before it bloomed into heat and pain, and Bruce realized the Joker had cut open the back of his costume, separating cowl from cape and exposing the bare skin at the back of his neck.

Bruce gave a token struggle as the knot pushing into couldn't push in any longer and was pressing up against him, stretching him a little more with each violent thrust, but the fingers embedded in his other shoulder just held on tighter. It felt like the Joker was trying to rip him apart, but then that pain became the last thing on his mind when the alpha shoved his knot into Bruce. It started to swell, once it was inside him, and as it did, the Joker sank his fangs into the back of Bruce's neck with a deep, rumbling growl.

Being knotted was already an overwhelming process, and the pleasure of it slammed into Bruce in triplicate as the Joker locked into him, filling Bruce with his release as Bruce bucked against him and came. The added sensation of a mating bond settling into his skin nearly made him black out, his vision and hearing fading in and out so much that he wasn't completely sure he didn't lose consciousness for at least a few seconds. The only thing that made him think he hadn't was that the Joker's already clear scent was crystal sharp, like it would cut him if he breathed too deeply. It was aggressively possessively, and darkly angry, and so so strong that it would send lesser being to their knees, begging for forgiveness for crimes they hadn't committed. It smelled of victory, and in so, also like defeat, like the end of the world. The end of Bruce's world.

The Joker was rocking into him, using Bruce's body to milk his knot, and tracing something sharp and pointed across the unprotected plane of Bruce's back. The knife he'd used to cut open Bruce's costume, and Bruce, twice. "If you kill me, you'll go mad," Bruce found himself saying before he could remind himself that the Joker was already mad.

"Don't worry, toots, I'm already ahead of the curve," the Joker cackled. "My changed scent drove my pretty little wife to suicide and drove me to murder and mayhem. Oh, and you of course. My new pretty little wife. You gonna take the easy way out too, Bat-babe?"

"I'm not that weak," Bruce said, unable to keep the challenge or the affront from his voice.

"Mmm, no you're not, Batman, but you are susceptible, aren't you?" the Joker said, and then clamped his hand over Bruce's nose and mouth, the side of his hand pushing just a little into Bruce's mouth and settling against his teeth, keeping him from closing his mouth against the assault. Because more than having his air cut off, Bruce's sense of smell and taste were rebelling against the chemical scent pressed up against his nostrils and his tongue. It was terrible, in the archaic sense of the word. the Joker's pheromones were still thick in the air, and they were the only thing keeping his body from expelling the contents of his stomach.

The chemical taste spread across his tongue, went up his nose and slithered down the back of his throat. It was like inhaling paint fumes - overwhelming and eye-watering and a bit high-inducing. The world swam in his vision as he struggled weakly against the hand forcing that terrible scent into him, and as his lungs began to protest, he wondered if that chemical taint was embedded in his neck along with the Joker's mating mark now.

The Joker suddenly forced his still-swollen knot out of Bruce, and the unexpected strain, the unexpected i _pain_ /i- shocked Bruce into biting down hard on the hand in his mouth. Blood sprayed across his tongue, turning the chemical taste to a more metallic one, a more pure version of the Joker's scent, and he wanted to unlock his jaw, but shock was keeping him from remembering how. The tips of fingers dug into the hinges of bone in his cheeks, forcing his mouth open, and the hand he'd inadvertently trapped disappeared. The fingertips keeping his mouth open remained though, digging in and cutting him with sharp nails. And then the hand was back, pushing the purest form of his true mate's scent onto his tongue, the musky taste and scent spreading through him and down his throat, filling him.

As the shock faded, Bruce realized the Joker was humming a Jack-in-the-box song under his breath, and that what he was coating Bruce's tongue with was the Joker's cum. From Bruce's ass. When it clicked, what exactly the Joker was doing, Bruce jerked back automatically and tried to snap his mouth shut, but the hand forcing his jaw open was iron-strong and wouldn't let him escape.

"Uh-uh-uh! Growing boys need to take their vitamins!" the Joker said with a laugh, and then smeared the next glob across Bruce's mouth and over and under his nose.

It filled his senses with the Joker, with that scent that called to him, and even though it had been delivered along with minor skin contact, the chemical tain faded quickly. He could feel the Joker smearing more cum across Bruce's skin, calloused fingertips working the substance into the cuts the madman had already made, making them sting. They'd need to be washed and disinfected, and Bruce was thoroughly disgusted by what he was being forced to eat, what was being worked into his skin in an undeniable claim, like the throbbing bite mark at the back of his neck, but at the same time, his most base instincts were quite pleased by his alpha's claiming, at the way any and all suitors would be warned away by what the Joker was doing.

Bruce could struggle, he could fight - he was stronger between rounds of his heat - but he wasn't going to win and he wasn't going to escape. Not in his condition and not when his true mate was so close and had already had him once. So he dealt with it. He focused on centering himself, on conserving his energy, and ignored the proprietary touches and his own disgust because he knew that, as bad as it was, it was going to get worse. And he was right.

By the time his heat had finally run its course, everything but his cowl, cape, and belt were in shreds, and his skin was marked in stinging red lines from the Joker's knife when he'd cut Batman's suit from him. His skin was smeared with sticky trails of the Joker's cum, and some cuts burned from where the Joker had anointed them. The back of his neck ached from the multitude of times the Joker had renewed the mating mark, and the force with which they were applied ("As if I'd let you forget who's knotting you, Batboy" the Joker had said, as if Bruce _could_ forget). It was everything Bruce had expected would happen if he ever let the Joker take him. The one thing that was a surprise was that the Joker never attempted to unmask him when he was most vulnerable, and yet, the Joker had never really been interested in unmasking him. It wouldn't be any fun, Bruce supposed.

The first time he woke up with a clear head, the Joker wasn't in the room, his scent stale amidst the moonbeams shining in from the window. There was a folded notecard on the floor next to the bed, and when Bruce flipped it opened, he grimaced at the calligraphed message:

 _Bed reserved for private party - 3 months_

Bruce crumpled the card in his fist and dropped it on the bed as he stood, every muscle and joint in his body aching and complaining each time he stooped to gather up any evidence of his presence in that warehouse. The mattress was a lost cause, soaked in sweat and slick and cum and dotted with his blood, so he set the surface on fire, burning away the evidence. He stayed only long enough to put out the flames once he was satisfied and then he left, sneaking through the city back to where the Batmobile was hidden. It was strange to smell the city again, to not have his nose filled with the scents of his heat and the Joker's presence, and it was strange that it was strange.

Alfred was at the door as soon as he walked in, the old beta's scent saturated with worry.

"Master Bruce," he greeted, relief suffusing his tone, his scent, his body language. Bruce couldn't stop though, he had to scrub his scent and figure out what to do about the mark at the back of his neck. "I've been-" he started and then stopped, nose finally catching up on the situation. He frowned and raised The Eyebrow of Disappointment. "I should think I warrant at least a notice when you decide to spend your heats elsewhere, sir," he said loftily.

It was only at that did Bruce pause his rapid pace, one foot already on the stairs. "It was the Joker, Alfred," he said at last, after a long deliberation. Alfred was so shocked that he jerked in place.

"The Joker took advantage of you?" he asked, both fearful and doubtful, and altogether confused. He was already aware that they were true mates, so at least that wouldn't come as a surprise to the poor man.

"Yes and no," Bruce conceded, continuing on his mission to the showers. "He took me from the crime scene and put me in an unlockable room because he knew I couldn't leave. And he didn't touch me until… until I asked him to, because he knew that I eventually would."

Alfred was silent for a long time, hurrying ahead of Bruce to start the shower and then he even went a step further and began to draw a bath as Bruce undressed. His lips pursed when he caught sight of the cuts staggered across Bruce's skin, but he didn't comment. On them, at least. "Do we need to worry about any… complications?" he asked instead, eyes lingering on Bruce's flat stomach.

Bruce found the energy to huff out a laugh. "No, Alfred," he said as he closed the shower door behind him. "You know I take birth control." He let silence reign as he washed his hair, but he could tell his butler had yet to leave. "He bonded me." Secrets were almost non-existent between him and Alfred, Alfred was the one person in the world he knew he could trust with any secret, but those three words were somehow the hardest he'd ever had to string together and push out.

Alfred's response was both immediate and comforting, and Bruce couldn't help but smile.

"I'll make an appointment with a discreet bond breaker immediately," he said firmly, as if the mere thought of Bruce going to the appointment erased the bond already.

"No, not yet," Bruce found himself saying, before he'd even settled on the decision to keep it.

"Master Bruce?" Alfred sounded confused but ready to either argue Bruce's points or accept them, depending on what he replied with.

He mulled over his response, and his reasoning, as he finished washing, and when he stepped out of the shower, the bath was ready and smelled of lavender. He raised an eyebrow at Alfred who raised his back. "It's said to be calming, sir," he replied with all the surety of a man who wasn't going to go through the effort of drawing a second bath if his job depended on it.

"Calming," Bruce echoed, slightly mockingly as he got in anyway. He could feel Alfred's eyes on the healing mark as he settled in, until he rested his head back against the sloped tub edge.

"He didn't exactly seem to take much care with… you," Alfred said, voice fading into a slight echo as he turned away. Bruce wondered if the pause was where Alfred had thought about saying 'his mate' and then decided not to.

"No, he didn't," Bruce confirmed, closing his eyes. Even on the drive back home, he could still feel the Joker over him, inside him, like a phantom. He had fucked Bruce hard and fast, had cut him, bruised him, bit him, and not just on the back of the neck either. He had fucked like he fought - reckless and out of control and completely accepting of whatever outcome his actions resulted in. It been terrifying and exhilarating and… addicting.

Bruce wondered how long it would take him to cave to the siren's call of his true mate seeing him through another heat.

* * *

Bruce lasted a year.

He was more meticulous than ever before in using scent blockers, including his own carefully crafted blend that was more potent than what was commercially available. More than that, every morning, as soon as he woke, he applied a piece of synthetic skin to his bond bite to keep it secret and didn't remove it until he went to sleep. Not one person noticed he'd been mated, either in his business or his crime-fighting life. Not one person commented on the back of his neck or on the slight change in his natural scent, which he could tell was now paired with something dark, something with a metallic undertone that made him think of blood, made him think of the scattered smooth scars from the Joker's blade.

A week after that fateful heat, Batman put the Joker back into Arkham, and he stayed there until a week before Bruce's next heat. The man was mad, sure, but he was smart, and it was too much of a coincidence for Bruce to believe it was accidental. Still, he wasn't ready, and he locked the Joker back up even as the alpha grinned darkly at him and waggled his eyebrows. He spent his heat alone, with toys.

The heat after that had the Joker breaking out two weeks early, and leaving macabre courting gifts all over Gotham. Like a cat gifting its own with a dead mouse or bird. These wooing attempts, reasonably, had the opposite effect, and resulted in the Joker being returned to Arkham trussed up like a pig. With an apple in his mouth and a broken nose. He spent this heat alone with toys too.

The third heat post-mating told Bruce that, no matter the Joker's original intention of waiting Bruce out, he'd run out of patience. Which became clear when he kidnapped Bruce a full three weeks before his heat. He put Batman in a windowless room that took Bruce a week and a half to escape from. That time, Bruce was sickly proud of the broken arm, leg, and ribs he'd left the Joker with, a reminder that the Joker would never spend another heat with him again if Bruce didn't want him to. _That_ heat he spent with another alpha, one he enjoyed his time with in the past and who could be trusted to keep his silence on Bruce's gender, but more importantly, one who could be trusted not to mate with Bruce. Bruce had fun, as always, but he spent most of the time worried about the prosthetic at the back of his neck. Afterwards, he paid a visit to the Joker with the other alpha's scent still on his skin, and he smiled smugly at the fury on his alpha's face.

His fourth heat after their mating, a year to the day, Bruce submitted. He couldn't really have given a reason to his actions if anyone pressed, but no one did. They returned to the same loft as before, unchanged but for the burned mattress which had been replaced with an intact one that Bruce was going to have to burn too. Although, after his little display, flaunting his coupling with someone else, Bruce expected a great deal more blood to end up on this mattress than the last one. As usual, he was right.

the Joker was… unhinged. Their first time, he had fucked Batman like he was in a fight. This time, the Joker decimated him, tore him apart. Every one of Bruce's actions was met with a severe overreaction. Everything he said or did seemed to trigger the Joker's fight-or-fight instinct, and Bruce's skin was a mess of blue and purple bruises well before the first day was over. The aggression might have been for any number of reasons, but the bite marks made it clear that the alpha whose claim Bruce had accepted and let keep was a violently possessive one.

The bruises he'd gained were accompanied by new mating bites at the back of his neck and at the apex of both biceps and thighs. He was sure that he would have been bitten at his wrists and ankles and at the insides of his elbows and knees if his musculature could have sustained them. Instead, he was bitten deeper than was comfortable on both ass cheeks, calves, and sides. Bites he'd never be able to hide, like the one on the back of his neck. There would be no way to bring anyone into his bed without a great deal of explaining or excuses, which he was sure was the Joker's intention.

The bites left thin trails of blood all over Bruce's body, smears of it neon-bright against the Joker's skin, dripping down to mix with the slick and semen already beginning to soak into the mattress. And that was before the knife came out. Or knives. Bruce was never sure how many there were, only that they left even more stinging lines of cold-hot pain across his skin than the last time. He tried to pay attention to potential patterns, but it was all too chaotic, and he wouldn't be sure the Joker hadn't literally carved his name into Bruce's skin until he could check himself back home.

The fucking itself was ferocious, and it almost seemed like the Joker got less sleep that Bruce did. He was always ready to knot him, sometimes even before Bruce was ready to be knotted. He appeared at have endless stamina, and sometime he ended up pushing into Bruce between rounds of his heat. He always came and long, filling Bruce with more come than seemed reasonable, except when he pulled out at least once each day to smear his release across Bruce's skin, working it into his flesh and his cuts and his bite marks.

As disgusting, and painful, as it all was, it was the only thing that made the touch and taste and smell of the Joker's skin, when forced on him, bearable. Because the Joker's scent never got any easier to bear. That chemical scent was always the discordant note amongst their mixing pheromones, the screech disrupting the otherwise perfect orchestra. Bruce just couldn't get used to it, no matter how hard he tried. He suspected he never would.

The only thing that remained unchanged between their first heat and their second was that the Joker never once tried to unmask him. When Bruce limped home, battered and beaten, like the ashen, tattered remains of the second mattress, he wondered how long he would be be able to do this. How long would he be able to resist returning to the Joker again? How long until he didn't try to resist at all? What would become of them as they got older? Would Bruce ever get the bond broken? Would one of them get killed long before those concerns came to be? Would he ever reveal his identity, on accident or on purpose? Too many questions, too many variables; the future was hazy and unsure, and Bruce did not relish its coming.

Alfred was silent this time around, having already received warning of where Bruce was going to spend his heat. He had disagreed strongly before Bruce had left, had tried to persuade him to make an appointment at a discreet clinic instead, but he'd let Bruce go with only a disapproving air. There was no sign of that air now, only comfort and kindness and relief, though it was all tempered with worry when he finally saw the state of Bruce's skin. To dissuade conversation about his injuries, Bruce didn't make eye contact as he stepped into the already running shower, looking forward to the bath being drawn.

He idly wondered if Alfred would become more or less worried with each heat Bruce spent with his alpha as the water pounded a soothing beat against his skull, and then he let the thought flow down the drain along with the slick and semen and blood flaking off of his skin. The high water pressure made his bites and his cuts sting, the wounds reopening under the force, and he knew his bathwater would be tinged pink by the end of it. It felt like a physical echo of the Joker's bond, that burning under his skin, flaring hot and cold with each contemplative swing between acceptance and rejection.

Rejection…

It was a rarer and rarer thought, the longer he kept the Joker's bond, but it still crossed his mind now and then. The knowledge that he didn't have to keep this connection that had been formed between them. That he always had the chance to obliterate it if he ever found someone he actually wanted to spend his life with. The acceptance came from knowing that if he hadn't found someone that he would willingly reveal his greatest secret to, then he never would. And that the Joker would always be there, whether Bruce wanted him to be or not.

Bruce left his thoughts in the shower with the dirty water washing down the drain and kept his mind empty as he crawled into the tub. Or he tried to. The ache in his ass from how thoroughly the Joker had knotted him made sure the alpha was never far from his mind. It was a great deal of difficult that Bruce forced himself into a meditative state, and then he sunk beneath the water, feeling calm and safe and secret.

It was true that no good would come from avoiding his problems, but no good came of the Joker whether Bruce thought about him or not. Especially not a the Joker who was his mate. No good at all. Bruce expertly ignored his avoidance and let himself sink into the dark and the silence.

FIN

* * *

 **Wow I am not happy with this. Like at all. Like omg I hate it. And it's so long. My Kinktobers were only supposed to be 2k. -; The last person I had so much trouble writing was Hannibal Lecter and now apparently I can add Batman and especially the Joker to that list. So yeah, I hate this, but I hope someone likes it. It's certainly longer and less smutty than I wanted but at least now I can toss this plot bunny into the forest and wash my hands of it. BE GONE, FOUL BEAST, OR ELSE I SHALL VANQUISH YOU WITH THIS THE HOLY HAND GRENADE.**

 **Fun fact: I like to watch/listen to source content when I write so I put on 'The Dark Knight' while I was at work to keep me in the BatJokes mood, BUT THEN after the parade thing and Gordon gets shot and Harvey kidnaps that paranoid schizophrenic for answers, Batman stops Harvey and is all "you're the best for this city you're amazing don't turn bad" and Harvey turns around and goes "no i _you're_ /i the amazing one just let me do what i have to so you can keep being you". And my traitorous brain goes "wow they're such supportive boyfriends for each other both of them "aw babe sweetie honey no you're the best i love what you i love what you do"".**

 **Reblog the thing (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, tagged/No-Rehab-for-Gotham-White).**


	2. Chapter 2

**I did not expect to write more of this and yet here I am. For some reason ended up listening to a 'Drumming Song' (by Florence + the Machine) half the entire time I wrote this, and 'Batman: The Animated Series' (on Prime) the other half.**

* * *

Day 22: Glory hole | Collaring | **Scars**

When Bruce woke up, he wondered which fact said more about him: that he wasn't bothered by emerging from a drugged sleep, or that he could recognize that he'd been drugged at all. Although, the blurred edges to the world around him was probably a dead giveaway of the latter. Not that knowing he'd been drugged helped at all - he had little to no information to work with to puzzle out what he'd been given, how long ago, and where he'd been taken after. Even if he had the information, his mind was molasses thick and molasses slow, processing the world around him at a glacial pace. It took too long to realize that his arms and legs were unresponsive because they were tied down, that he couldn't see well because the only light in the room - warehouse? - was a good distance from him, that he couldn't hear because there was nothing to hear, that he couldn't smell because there was a scent smeared under his nose. The only thing he could be sure of was that Bruce Wayne, not Batman, was tied to a chair, his mouth was duct-taped shut, and the rise of his heat was a simmering burn under his skin.

He tried to organize his mind pull himself together so he could reach any of the little tools sewn into the sleeve of his suit jacket, but he must have faded away again because the next time he blinked, his mind felt clearer, there was a light on directly above him, and there were two men in the room - warehouse - with him, watching him. There was nothing particularly memorable about them, they looked like every other two-bit criminal he'd ever taken down, which made the flash of memory, of arms around him, pulling him into an alley on his way home, and a needle jabbing into his neck, all the more insulting. Bruce scowled. At least the drugs were finally fading.

"It looks like our illustrious Mr. Wayne is awake," one of the men, the taller one that stood like a beta with something to prove, sneered. Bruce stared him down and began to pick at the seams of the insides of his sleeves. "I hope you'll find our five-star accommodations to your satisfaction."

The other man, average height but with the confidence of a life-long alpha, was frowning at Bruce. "Didn't you say he was a beta?"

The tall beta turned towards his companion. "No one knows what he is for sure, they just think he's probably a beta."

Frown deepening, the alpha stepped closer, nostrils flaring. Instincts had Bruce wanting to tense at having a strange alpha creeping closer when he was so close to his heat and when he was immobilized, but he was careful not to let it show. It wouldn't have mattered if he had though, the alpha wasn't really concerned with him, more concerned with trying to parse the scents in the air, Bruce's heat likely leaking through the scent blockers he wore. He'd been heading home when he'd been taken, he always left early on the day of his heat, and his scent blockers weren't meant to last through a kidnapping. All it took was for the alpha to bend down close enough, the tip of his nose brushing the side of Bruce's neck.

"Holy shit," the man breathed, breath wafting across Bruce's sensitive skin, scent filtering past whatever was blocking Bruce's ability to smell. He did his best to suppress a shudder at the arousal that came in loud and clear, but he couldn't be sure of his success. Part of him wanted to breathe in deep the scent of alpha attraction, but it was a small part, overshadowed by the side of him mated and bonded. As much as he could barely stand the Joker, could barely stand the scent or taste of his skin, it was his pheromones that Bruce craved, only his pheromones that Bruce wanted when he was like this.

The alpha was still breathing deeply at his neck, and Bruce tensed at the hand that landed on his belly.

"Holy shit what?" the beta asked impatiently, and finally the man leaning over Bruce stood up and turned towards his companion again.

"Bruce Wayne is an omega."

It was strange, hearing those words. Not the tone, necessarily, he never expected the declaration of his secondgender to come out any other way than disbelieving, but hearing the words at all. It was enough of a surprise that he nearly cut his finger on the little knife in his sleeve, finally exposed. Almost no one he knew knew what his true secondgender was, and the ones he'd told, alphas before the Joker that he'd spent his heat with, were calm and collected, taking the reveal in stride, never surprised or demeaning. It was information that Bruce had mostly planned on taking to his grave, if for no other reason than secrecy, and as Batman, anonymity, gave him an edge over his opponents.

"No fucking way," the beta scoffed, but he was already looking doubtful of his own disbelief. Bruce gathered himself and carefully began to saw at the ropes around his wrists with his little blade.

"Yes fucking way, come smell," the alpha shot back. A hand fisted in Bruce's hair, yanking his head to the side, exposing his neck.

The beta strode up and bent down much quicker than the alpha, pressing almost the entirety of his face right against Bruce's neck. It felt like a deeper violation than the alpha scenting him by himself, the hand in his hair forcing his neck into vulnerability.

"Holy shit," the beta breathed after a minute snuffling at Bruce's neck, his nose less susceptible to the pheromones of omegas and alphas. His scent also lacked any kind of appeal to Bruce's instincts, his scent bland where the alpha's had an edge of enticement. "Bruce fucking Wayne is a fucking omega."

"Fuckin' told you," the alpha said, finally letting go when the beta stepped back to stare down at Bruce. Bruce could only scowl back up at him even though the heat in his skin was slowly starting to melt his bones.

"You think he's hiding a mate too?" the beta asked, gaze intense like he was trying to unravel Bruce's secrets just by looking at him.

A hand at the back of his head shoved Bruce's chin to his chest, exposing the back of his neck where his prosthetic was covering his mating mark. He closed his fist around the little knife and hope the alpha didn't notice the fraying of the ropes either.

"Nah, back of his neck's clear," the alpha started to say as he swiped a finger across the skin, and then he paused, his finger pushing down harder. "Wait…"

The prosthetic meant that Bruce couldn't _actually_ feel what the man was doing, but he could feel it in a phantom-touch way, the fingernail scraping over the fake skin, easily at first and then harder, until it peeled away.

"The fuck is that?" the beta asked, stepping closer, nearly sandwiching Bruce's body between the two men.

"It looks like fake skin…" the alpha muttered, sounding disgusted. "Hiding a mating mark," he continued, trailing off as his thumb brushed the scars left by the Joker's teeth. The touch made Bruce shudder, and involuntary response of arousal and disgust at having his bond bite touched, but not by his mate. "Christ, how much do you think someone would pay to know that Bruce Wayne was hiding his secondgender and a mate this entire time."

"Idunno man, maybe the mating's new?" the beta asked, bending over Bruce to peer at the back of his neck.

"Nah, lookit it, thing's old," the alpha dismissed. "It ain't the first one either," he said, tracing a fingertip over the individual lines left from every time the Joker had mated him. Each touch made Bruce shudder again, disgust making his skin crawl even as his body got hotter and wetter. "He's either got a possessive alpha or he goes through mates like he does lovers."

"Look at him though," the beta said, stepping back just enough to put a little room between him and Bruce. But then he leaned forward and started unbuttoning Bruce's shirt and Bruce had to concentrate on not struggling away from his touch. Luckily, the alpha stepped around in front of him too, finally taking his hands from Bruce's skin and leaving Bruce free to resume sawing at the thick rope with his small blade.

Under the beta's hands, Bruce's white dress shirt parted and the halves fell apart, exposing his chest on inch at a time. He carefully breathed through his nose even when the beta paused, the tips of his fingers tracing the lines of scars across Bruce's skin. He could no longer remember where he'd gotten them all, he had no idea which ones were caused by the Joker, or which ones he'd gotten from the Riddler or the Penguin or any number of criminals he'd fought against in his years as Batman.

"You're right, he's not exactly omega-perfect," the alpha said as if Bruce was no more animate than a couch to be measured and to be judged whether or not he fit in the other man's life. "He's almost got an alpha build and those scars - not cute." Even as he spoke, he reached forward to touch too. "I wonder what they're from, and how many he has."

Bruce's suit jacket and shirt were shoved down his shoulders, leaving his front bare and sending a faint breeze across his shoulders and between his shoulder blades.

"Jesus, even his back is marked all to hell," the beta said, circling around Bruce, forcing him to halt his discreet attempt to escape. "What alpha would even want defective goods like this? I guess he's cute, and rich, but that's about it. Alpha body, alpha attitude. What alpha would be possessive over someone like this?"

"What alpha wouldn't be possessive over a pretty thing like that?" a new voice asked. Or rather, cackled. It sent the hair on the back of Bruce's neck to stand on end and his head snapped up. He knew that voice.

"Hey boss," alpha and beta chimed in unison, and then just the alpha, "We got you a present."

The Joker stepped into the light and Bruce went rigid.

He'd wondered about it, of course he had, the Joker finding out his identity. More-so in the beginning than recently, when the alpha had shown no indication of caring who Batman was under the mask after three years, three years of heats where Bruce was left vulnerable at the Joker's hands and his knives. He'd wondered about telling his alpha, about his alpha finding out, and he had made plans for any of it, and yet, seeing his mate here and now when Bruce was so restricted that he couldn't even fight back, when the revelation wasn't his choice, wasn't the scenario he'd ever thought it would be.

"I see that," the Joker said, stepping forward. There was something alarmingly calm about him, his typical eracticism nowhere to be found. It was a quiet, focused energy Bruce had only seen in the deepest part of his heats, when the Joker had dropped the knife and was bound and determined to hurt Bruce through the power of his words and his hands alone.

Bruce couldn't help but flinch when cold, pale fingertips pressed to his belly and trailed up his sternum to his throat. He looked up into wild eyes and found no recognition as the alpha circled around him, palm gliding around Bruce's neck without leaving it, like he was being circled with an imaginary collar. When his alpha passed over his bond bite, it sent a violent shudder through Bruce and a harsh exhalation out his nose. When the Joker's circle completed and he was standing in front of Bruce again, the alpha surprised him by swinging a leg over his and plopping down in Bruce's lap, looping his arms around Bruce's neck.

Fingers buried in Bruce's hair, combing through the short strands, twirling and gently pulling at the ends, and the touch was so surprisingly soft, especially in comparison to how the Joker usually touched him, that it had Bruce's eyelashes fluttering and his heat rising drastically. He didn't _want_ to press into the touch, but when his alpha was this close, the thick scent of his pheromones filtering through whatever was smeared under Bruce's nose, the touch of his skin against Bruce's made Bruce pliable, his eyes closing and his head tilting back, exposing the front of his throat.

"You really are a pretty thing," the Joker murmured, weight shifting forward and the tip of his freezing nose dragging along Bruce's jaw, his touch like an icicle. "My pretty thing."

Bruce's eyes snapped open but even if he could have spoken, even if there wasn't tape over his mouth, the alpha that had taken him was already talking.

"Er, yeah, he's definitely for you boss," he said, trading confused looks with his beta partner behind the Joker. "We figured we could get a good ransom for him or something. And I bet the Gazette would pay a _lot_ to know that Bruce Wayne is an omega. A _mated_ omega."

"Bet his alpha would pay more to keep it quiet," the beta said, as if it was some grand idea. If only he was right. If only Bruce's alpha was some high class member of society like Bruce was. If only his alpha wasn't a madman with a secret past and a desire to hurt Bruce as much as he knotted him.

"What was it you said about his alpha again?" the Joker asked, pressing his face into Bruce's neck. His lips and nose were pressed to the curve of Bruce's shoulder, right where the beta had shoved his face to try to get a whiff of Bruce's heat scent through his blockers, and brushing maddeningly back and forth, scent-marking Bruce. His skin was so cold that it was almost a relief against the heat of Bruce's, a singular counterpoint that had him shivering, his cock hard and trapped and his hole leaking. "That he might be possessive?"

"Yeah," the alpha said, though there was a tense line to both his body and his friend's. They were beginning to catch on, that something was wrong with the Joker now, that he was never this relaxed, that he was never not-crazy, and they were shifting uncomfortably from foot-to-foot, wringing their hands. "You should see the back of his neck."

One of the hands in Bruce's hair slid down to cup over his mating mark and clamped down hard, and Bruce shuddered again, forcing himself to release his exhale long and slow. The seat of his pants felt soaked, an altogether unpleasant situation, but more pleasant than the possibility of being knotted in front of these strangers, these strangers who knew who he was, who were going to tell the world what he was, one more of his secrets revealed.

"Hardly necessary," the Joker waved off, finally sitting up but without releasing the back of Bruce's neck. In fact, his nails dug in, their sharp, jagged edges biting into Bruce's skin until the first layer of skin broke and wetness trailed down from the four points. It as the first blood drawn this heat, but it wouldn't be the last by far. "I have to wonder what a possessive alpha like that would do to someone that touched their omega."

"Psh, even the Batman can't really touch you, boss," the beta said more confidently than it looked like he felt. "What can some richie alpha do?"

The Joker giggled, loud and high-pitched, the sound a jarring break from the unusual stoicism he'd affected since his arrival. "You hear that, honey?" he asked Bruce, head tilted to the side and sudden smile dark and sharp like the nails cutting into Bruce's skin. "He thinks Batsy can't touch me. He thinks your alpha can't touch him."

Bruce grunted when the Joker finally let go of the back of his neck, and again when the duct-tape was ripped from his mouth harshly, jerking his head sideways. The Joker's other hand was inside his own jacket, like he was reaching for a weapon. "Don't," Bruce rasped, even as the Joker pulled out a pistol.

"Thought you knew ol' Joker didn't share, cutie," the Joker said, smile sharpening as he held his hand up, gun pointed at the ceiling. Behind him, his underlings were trading glances and backing away, their faces pale. "Woulda done this to the last alpha that touched you if you weren't so hush-hush about it." He suddenly leaned in and bit at the curve of Bruce's shoulder, hard enough to draw blood, hard enough that Bruce had to bite off a sound of pain. "I can still smell them on you, Batsy," he whispered as he sat back up, licking Bruce's blood from his lips. "Gonna have to fuck it off you."

"Don't-" Bruce started again, but the Joker turned and fired, twice, the shots echoing off the warehouses walls and ceiling as the bodies of the men who'd taken Bruce crumpled to the ground. Even after decades, gunshot deaths still made his chest feel cold, but at least they didn't make him freeze up anymore. Possibly worse, it was terrifying how _good_ the Joker was when he wanted to be, and how aroused Bruce was at his competence. "You killed your own men."

"They shouldn't have touched you," the Joker said with a shrug. "Night, night, Batboy."

Bruce frowned, not understanding, but then a fist full of gun was coming at his face and he had no way to dodge it.

* * *

Joker's faint surprise at the front door of Wayne Manor opening under his hand was mitigated a moment later when he was greeted by the cocking of a shotgun in the hands of an elderly beta in a penguin suit.

"Ya gonna shoot?" he asked with a grin, even as he stepped inside and closed the door. Being back inside made the heatscent of his mate, draped over his shoulders, even more prevalent and Joker took a deep breath, taking it into his lungs. It wasn't something he got to smell often enough.

"Master Bruce?" the beta asked stiffly, hands tightening on his gun.

Joker reached up and slapped his omega's perfect ass, fingers trailing over where his pants were wettest then waving them in front of his nose before licking his fingertips. "Toots here went into heat. You gonna let me mate him right here? Looks like this marble could do use some shining."

The beta's face tightened, but he quietly led the way up the stairs and to a bedroom. "I'll be back with refreshments later," he said tightly. The door closed behind him with a soft click, and then Joker was alone with his mate again.

He dumped Batsy on the bed and started cutting his nice clothes off of him, shredding the cloth and leaving all that skin streaked with red, crisscrossing the silver of old scars. Batsy groaned and shifted as Joker shifted and tugged until his omega was laying naked on his belly over the soft sheets. His chest and back were smeared with his blood, leaving marks on the sheets, and the backs of his thighs were shiny with his slick that Joker could hardly tear his eyes from. His mate's unconsciousness was a rare opportunity, since he usually had no other choice than to fuck Bats unconscious and by that point, they were knotted together and Joker didn't get the chance to indulge in what he wanted to indulge in. But indulge now he could and indulge now he did.

Slick was a rare treat, but perfect match slick, mated perfect match slick? Ambrosia. Joker bent down and buried his face in his omega's ass, pushing his tongue into the source of that taste. He hummed as it slid across his taste buds, coating the inside of his mouth. It wasn't the first time he'd had it, he made sure to indulge every heat, but an omega's heats were quarterly and four times a year was hardly the desired frequency.

He saw Batboy constantly, fought with him throughout the year, and before his omega's ill-advised attempt at fighting his perfect match at the beginning of the heat, Joker had thought it was perfect. He'd never had more fun than when he was in a battle against the Bats. He still loved it, loved nothing more than laying down a puzzle and watching Batman frantically trying to solve it before anyone died. He loved hand-to-hand with him too, when Batsy eventually caught up to him and tried to beat him into the ground. Joker had no problem with admitting he liked that part too. There really was nothing like getting punched by Batman.

His omega groaned, hips pushing unconsciously back against Joker's tongue, and Joker grinned as he pulled away, licking his lips. The taste of Batsy's slick would stay with him for hours, but he'd have to make sure he tasted it again before his mate's heat was over. He pulled his cock out of his pants as he sat up and shuffled closer, holding the tip to Bats' hole without pushing inside. Then he leaned over his mate's scarred back and stuck two fingers past unresisting lips.

There was no one who knew how awful his skin truly was. No one alive, that was. His pretty wife, her memory faded with time, but impact everlasting, had killed herself to get away from it, from him. It wasn't as if he hadn't gone mostly crazy from his inability to tolerate it himself. He still wasn't sure if he wasn't high half the time, like gas fumes rising from his pores. But his omega, his mate, him Joker would force to take it until he got used to it or killed himself to get away from it too. Either way, Joker won.

For now, however, the taste of his skin was better than smelling salts, his unconscious mate twitching, brow furrowing as he tried to get away from the taste in his mouth. Joker just pushed down on his tongue harder, forcing his taste buds to accept the chemical tint of his skin. Batman came awake suddenly, jerking backwards, trying to get away from Joker's taste, and impaled himself directly onto Joker's waiting cock. Grin widening, Joker curved his fingers like a fish hook and pulled, yanking old Brucey's head to the side where he was met with startled eyes and then a scowl.

Joker slid his free hand up Batsy's spine and around the side of his neck, up his throat to cup under his jaw, fingers digging into the joints, forcing it open. He didn't pull his fingers out as he leaned forward, laying his weight across his mate's back, pinning him in place, until his mouth took Batboy's. Who fought him, at first, as he always did, but after a tightening of the claw of Joker's hand, and a long moment of his tongue pressing against his mate's, his omega eventually settled down. It had taken a little trial and error to determine that the taste of his tongue was more acceptable than that of his skin, but that was a treat to be used sparingly. And/or when Joker wanted a kiss.

"Morning, cutie," he said as he finally pulled back, smug in the dazed look on Batman's face. And what a face it was. _Who_ Batman was had never been as important as _what_ he was. Joker hadn't cared about the who, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a pretty face, especially when it was attached to the body he was fucking, _especially_ when it was attached to his mated omega.

Batman blinked at him, the gears in his head turning even as Joker clamped a hand down on his mate's shoulder, pulling his omega backwards as Joker fucked forward. His omega's skin was fever-hot, burning against Joker's lower body temperature. His hole around Joker's cock was like a furnace, and sometimes he wondered if his skin would melt off just by touching an omega-in-heat. Sometimes he wondered if Batman's skin felt so warm when he wasn't in heat.

"You brought me home," Batsy rasped, voice rough and gorgeous mind working in overtime, processing their surroundings. "You already knew, didn't you?"

"What kind of alpha doesn't know who is omega is?" Joker asked, a slight sneer to his voice as he rocked into his mate in a steady rhythm. The heated walls wrapped tightly around his cock spasmed and his steady rhythm faltered for a moment as arousal curled like lava in his belly. He had never missed sex, after his wife, but sex with Bats during his heat was… something else. A fight in a fuck like no one else could deliver.

"You never attacked me at home." It was as much of a statement as it was a question.

"I want to play with my mate, not Bruce Wayne," he said baldly.

"They're the same person."

"Oh honey, no, they're not."

Batsy, strangely prone to in-depth thought for such a physical fellow, continued the tradition by remaining silent, even with Joker fucking into him. It went on for a moment, long enough for Joker to get bored, and then Bats spoke again.

"Alfred?"

The idea of toying with his mate brightened Joker's interest and played at the fringes of Joker's mind for a minute before he decided he could do it later. If his mate thought Joker had hurt his maid, then their time together would turn into a proper battle. And as much fun as a pre-fuck fight was, especially when succeeded by a heat fuck, he was reluctant to do so on the first day of his omega's heats. It was when Batboy was the most wild, the most desperate, before the soreness and the exhaustion set in. It was when he still fought being knotted, even after three years. When Joker's blade got the most use.

"Your little toy is safe," he said, delighted at the tension to his omega's body in the intermittent silence, walls growing tight around Joker's cock, pulling him back in every time he pulled out. Maybe he should make his mate tense more often - it felt fantastic around his pistoning cock. "Couldn't very well play with a mate to take care of."

Batso's lip lifted, a silent snarl, like it always did every time Joker mentioned their relationship, but he no longer growled. Joker wondered how long it would take him to stop snarling entirely, for his Bats to seek him out first, how long until he showed up before his heat was too far in for him to handle, when he _needed_ Joker. And when he wondered about the future, he inevitably started wondering about…

Joker leaned over his mate, scraping his teeth along a shoulder blade as he slid one hand around his omega's waist to palm the muscled stretch of his belly. Brucey, who had started to tentatively rock back into his every thrust, went stock still again, but Joker's motions kept his omega. With his free hand, Joker pulled a knife and slid it under Batsy's neck, forcing his head up.

"Ya ever wonder, Batboy?" he whispered, still plowing into the stiff body under him. "Ya think about it at all?" He curled his fingers and dragged his ragged nails across the scarred skin, straight across where Batsy might swell one day.

His mate growled, the low sound rumbling through his chest and into the muscles under Joker's hand. " _No._ "

"Shame, sweetheart," Joker cooed, curling his claws all the way around Batsy's side to his back. "We'd make quite the pup."

Batman grunted and shoved hard back on Joker's cock, as if he was trying to shut him up. Joker grinned, amused, and shoved down hard between his mate's shoulders, drawing his knife over the curve of the man's shoulder, opening a thin line of skin as the man's face was pressed into the sheets. The corner of his lips were still curled in a silent snarl, but the only way he fought back was shoving his hips back harder, meeting every one of Joker's thrusts almost violently.

"You're right," Joker continued after a moment, drawing another line down the side of Batsy's spine. "Could hardly have a good fight when it's dangerous for our pup just to throw a punch."

"Shut. Up," his omega snarled, reaching back to strike at him.

Joker caught his wrist and pinned it back to the bed, and then buried his knife in the bed to pin his other wrist down. "No," he whispered into his mate's ear, biting sharply at the lobe as he set to making his mate shut up instead.

Every thrust jarred the body under his wildly, slowly moving Brucey up the bed until Joker used the wrists in his hold to pull him back down again. There was a soft grunt each time, and blood bloomed on his omega's skin as Joker scraped his teeth over every inch he could reach. He'd bruise before too long, skin mottled with Joker's touch. And despite rejecting the demand for silence, in Joker's enthusiasm, he did indeed shut up, though his teeth remained bared in a vicious grin.

His knot was swelling and he waited until it was almost too big before he bit into the back of his mate's neck and pulled him back hard onto his knot. Batsy bore it initially in silence, but when it forced its way past the tight right of muscles, Batsy hissed in pain, tendons in his wrist tightening when his fingers curled into the bedspread. The sharp tang of blood was thick over his tongue, mixing with the blooming pheromones in the air, the satisfaction of an omega well-knotted as his mate came on his cock, trembling under him and pulling Joker's own orgasm from where it was coiled low in his belly.

Afterwards, when his omega lay shaking beneath him, the first round of his heat passed and the first of Joker's orgasms passed, Joker sat back on his heels, running his hands up Batman's back, over the scars he'd left. He traced them one at a time, each letter long and thin, unreadable from any other angle than Joker's: knotted in his omega with his mate's ass in the air and his shoulders pressed to the bed.

J - O - K - E - R

FIN

* * *

 **I wish I could draw what I see in my head for the last paragraph... I dont't think there will be a c3 - I think I may be as dissatisfied with this chapter as the last one, but hopefully y'all like it as much anyway. :***

 **Don't forget: like the thing? reblog the thing (themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, tagged/No-Rehab-for-Gotham-White).**


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